The 68-year-old professor told the police that Chintan and Hema began to fight regularly – over personal and work matters – about six years after they wed on October 31, 1998

Vidhyadhar Rajbhar, absconding since the murders of Hema Upadhyay and Haresh Bhambani last December, had come to Jaipur to meet Chintan Upadhyay earlier that month, according to the police statement of Chintan’s father Vidhyasagar, an art professor from Jaipur. “Vidhyadhar and his two friends visited my house in the first week of December (2015) to meet Chintan. I told them Chintan had asked them to meet him in Mumbai. The three left after a short conversation with me.”

The 68-year-old professor told the police that Chintan and Hema began to fight regularly – over personal and work matters – about six years after they wed on October 31, 1998. “Their married life was going well for five to six years after their wedding. After that, they started having differences of opinion related to art and also started developing personal problems,” Vidhyasagar told the police.

In 2005, the couple bought a flat in Juhu. But as their problems escalated, Hema left home to live in a rented house in Gorai, Vidhyasagar said in his statement. In 2006, she returned to the Juhu apartment. The next year, Vidhyasagar and his wife visited Mumbai to help the couple resolve their differences, but in vain. Chintan filed for divorce in 2010 and moved to Delhi.

The police have also recorded the statement of Hema’s brother Manish Hirani, who told them he suspected that Chintan had Hema killed based on his ‘behavior’.